Chapter 27: The Decline of the Liang Kingdom Begins Today
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The fortune of an imperial dynasty was not something just anyone could see. In the vast empire of fifteen provinces, there were always a few extraordinary people capable of tracing the dragon veins and discerning the currents of destiny. Yet the prosperity of a unified dynasty’s fortune was something no individual could shake.
For the most part, once such gifted people entered Luojing, the suppression exerted by the imperial dragon veins and royal destiny would weaken even their abilities by eighty or ninety percent.
Xu Ziping, however, was different.
He had originally lived in seclusion on Mount Hua. Later, because his courtesy name was Yiju, he wrote a book on fortune-telling called *Fortune-Telling by Yiju*, a title so plain and straightforward it was almost laughable.
Yet somehow, this simple, candid book found its way into the hands of the previous-previous Emperor of Liang, who had long sought to cultivate the Dao and ascend to immortality. The emperor immediately sent men to Mount Hua to seize him and bring him back.
Xu Ziping had thought to himself, How unfair. If ascending to immortality were truly possible, would you have managed to capture me?
That was what he had thought, but he still took office in Liang.
What he never expected was that while the previous-previous Emperor of Liang was busy cultivating the Dao, Xu Ziping had worked for Liang for only two years before the emperor’s alchemy furnace exploded. The emperor was blasted beyond recognition and died on the spot.
After his death, the next emperor, Zhu Zuo, had troubles of his own. Perhaps because his father had cultivated the Dao and lived a life of austere restraint, he had demanded that the crown prince practice the same discipline.
But once his father died, Zhu Zuo threw all restraint to the winds and went everywhere in search of beautiful women. Then, in Xu Ziping’s fifth year of service, he got into a fight with street ruffians outside the palace, fell into the city moat, and drowned.
How unjust.
In a mere five years, Xu Ziping had seen two Emperors of Liang off to the afterlife.
Xu Ziping had thought his life could hardly become more exciting. He had been wrong.
With the current young emperor, Zhu Quan, Xu Ziping had now been appointed Grand Astrologer of the Grand Astrologers’ Office by three successive emperors of Liang. His principal duties were to arrange and interpret the imperial fortune, and to observe the sun, moon, and stars for signs of blessing or calamity.
Since his office existed precisely for such matters, and he carried an official seal authenticated by three emperors, he was like someone holding the original key to a safe while having already switched off the security cameras: he could open it with ease without triggering any alarm.
At that moment, he held the official seal in his hands and gazed into the sky above Luojing.
Over the imperial city, thick columns of black smoke were surging into the heavens. They were the smoke from the fire at the northern gate. But in Xu Ziping’s eyes, they were also streams of declining fortune.
In an instant, those currents of decay mingled with the dense fortune gathered above the imperial city. What had originally been a yellow-white radiance of auspiciousness now began to grow murky.
Within the fortune as dense as clouds and mist, Xu Ziping suddenly saw a crimson dragon of destiny swimming past. Since Liang belonged to the element of fire, its dragon of destiny was, in truth, a scarlet dragon—naturally hot-tempered and violent.
Even so, Xu Ziping could not truly see the dragon of Liang in its entirety. Dragons could grow large or small at will, summon clouds and exhale mist, conceal their scales and hide their forms. When they rose, they soared between Heaven and Earth; when they vanished, they lurked beneath the waves. Such a creature was beyond human power to control or observe.
Though he could not see the whole of it, he could hear the scarlet dragon’s roars drifting through the dense fortune, each one tinged with agitation and pain.
Xu Ziping knew why the dragon of destiny was especially restless today. A great flood of decay had poured into its fortune. Anyone would have been unable to bear it.
Just as Xu Ziping was about to end his observation, Luojing, which had been in broad daylight, suddenly brightened with dazzling intensity.
Two suns had appeared in the sky!
Vaguely, Xu Ziping heard people shouting in the streets outside the government office. But his heart gave a sudden jolt.
Those were not two suns.
It was the Ziwei Imperial Star.
For the Ziwei Imperial Star to appear in broad daylight was an omen that the Imperial Star was wavering and about to disappear.
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Sure enough, Xu Ziping saw the scarlet dragon of Liang let out a furious roar and charge straight toward the Ziwei Imperial Star. It was likely trying to hold the star in place, unwilling to let it display signs of wavering and concealment.
But moments later, Xu Ziping could only watch as the fortune of Liang churned violently. The scarlet dragon soon fell back into the dense mist of destiny, and the Ziwei Imperial Star vanished afterward.
The sky, which had abruptly blazed with light, returned to its former dim grayness. Yet when the scarlet dragon collided with the Imperial Star, a wound as broad as a bowl had opened on its body, already tainted by the aura of decay. The instant the wound appeared, a great mass of dragon qi escaped from it and scattered throughout the fifteen provinces beneath Heaven.
The scarlet dragon had suffered blow after blow that day. It roared in agony within the mist of fortune.
As it writhed in pain, vast quantities of the people’s hopes and vitality throughout the fifteen provinces rose into the sky in great surging masses. They transformed into rolling auspicious clouds and streamed toward Luojing. With the people’s hopes from all fifteen provinces replenishing it, the wound on the scarlet dragon’s body finally began to heal at great speed.
But though the wound closed, the aura of decay clinging to the dragon grew heavier.
Only then did Xu Ziping’s heart jolt.
This time, things were truly bad.
Over the past few years, the strength of Liang had declined day by day. The fifteen provinces appeared calm on the surface, but beneath that calm they were gathering the force of one final eruption.
Today, the Ziwei Imperial Star had vanished. The scarlet dragon had tried to hold it back and instead been gravely wounded. It had then attempted to heal itself with the people’s hopes, never imagining that those hopes from the fifteen provinces had long been mixed with vast quantities of death qi, resentment, and desolation.
That meant the realm of Liang truly had nothing left but its outer shell.
Today’s events were merely the spark. The scarlet dragon would likely never again be able to suppress the true-dragon destinies and sovereign destinies of the fifteen provinces.
The instant this thought formed in Xu Ziping’s mind, he faintly heard a medley of strange sounds around him: snow wolves howling at the moon, dragon-horses galloping, fish leaping and splashing through water, serpents slithering along the ground.
It had truly happened just as he had thought.
The scarlet dragon was in decline, and a great amount of dragon qi had scattered into the fifteen provinces. The ruler of Liang had lost the deer of empire, and the realm was now open to all who wished to pursue it. In less than half a day, all manner of sovereign destinies had already emerged from the various provinces in response to Heaven’s timing.
From this moment onward, these splendid mountains and rivers would become a vast stage, awaiting the heroes of every faction for a grand performance in which one troupe would leave the stage and another would take its place.
The decline of Liang began today.
Xu Ziping was merely a man who observed the currents of fortune, relying heavily on the official seal in his hands. He was not truly an earthly immortal. There were no earthly immortals in this world.
There was nothing he could do about it.
After putting away the official seal, Xu Ziping looked again at the sky above Luojing. Perhaps because the weather was poor, all he could see was a gloomy gray haze hanging over the entire city.
The spectacle of two suns in the sky had disappeared, but the people outside the government office were still clamoring. Quite a few had brought great drums and iron pots, striking them loudly in an attempt to frighten away this terrifying celestial omen.
After a while, a eunuch hurried over from the palace. The moment he saw Xu Ziping, he cried out in a shrill voice, “Grand Astrologer Xu, disaster! The northern gate has caught fire. When His Majesty went to inspect the blaze, a falling beam struck him. He is still unconscious. The Empress Dowager sent imperial physicians to examine him. His wounds have been treated, but he has not yet awoken. Her Majesty orders you to go and take a look.”
Xu Ziping silently sighed.
What was this supposed to mean? He was no imperial physician. By comparison, life in seclusion on Mount Hua had been so much more comfortable. Unfortunately, others had dragged him into the mortal world, and now that he was bound to Liang, there was no way out.
He entered the imperial city with a heavy heart. With the Empress Dowager’s permission, he once again examined the fortune above the palace.
Over Changxin Palace, the dense fortune sometimes spread like sea mist, roiling and shifting, and sometimes gathered into the form of an enormous phoenix hairpin. Cold light glimmered from the head of the pin, like a sharp sword aimed directly toward the place above where the scarlet dragon lay.
Changxin Palace was the residence of Zhu Quan’s nominal mother, the Empress Dowager Kede.
Zhu Quan’s birth mother had died young and had held little influence in the palace. Empress Dowager Kede, in truth, was only twenty-seven years old. She was young, extraordinarily beautiful, and greatly favored by Zhu Zuo.
Her sole shortcoming was that she had no child.
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When Zhu Zuo died suddenly, Li Gong, the Grand Marshal and leader of the literati at the Liang court, entered the palace. He said to Empress Dowager Kede, “The emperor is dead, and you have no child. Let us choose a young one.”
“A young emperor will have no opinions of his own. He will listen to you and instinctively depend upon you. That way, you can enjoy a peaceful old age. As for me, I will be able to display my talents freely at court. After all, an emperor so young will have no independent judgment.”
Empress Dowager Kede thought his proposal made perfect sense and agreed.
That very day, the two of them wrote a decree in Zhu Zuo’s own hand, then announced that it was his last testament.
Yet Li Gong had not realized that Empress Dowager Kede was ambitious. She was still young, after all. She was unwilling to spend the rest of her life growing old within the inner palace.
Rather than retire into peaceful old age while still in the prime of her life, she wanted to rule from behind the imperial curtains.
Today, the scarlet dragon had been gravely wounded and could no longer suppress the sovereign destinies of the realm. Even within Luojing, dragons and serpents had begun to dance.
Xu Ziping happened to catch a glimpse of the struggle for power among the members of the imperial family, and his heart gave a sudden lurch. Fortunately, the scarlet dragon of destiny above the imperial city had already calmed down.
It lay listlessly within the dense mist of fortune, its head turned toward the palace where the young emperor resided. Then it opened its jaws and breathed out a stream of dragon qi mixed with the aura of decay.
Xu Ziping had observed the currents of fortune repeatedly, and even with the assistance of his official seal, his mental strength was beginning to fail. The Empress Dowager had just opened her mouth to ask how matters stood when she happened to see the young emperor slowly open his eyes.
Xu Ziping lowered his head, though from time to time his gaze drifted toward the wound bandaged across the young emperor’s forehead.
The scarlet dragon’s injury foretold harm to the young emperor’s dragon body. It was the hour—and it was fate.
On that same day, as the Ziwei Imperial Star wavered and vanished, no one knew where its influence might lead. The scarlet dragon of Liang no longer had the strength to suppress the fifteen provinces.
This vast realm of mountains and rivers was like a drop of water falling into a cauldron of boiling oil. It erupted completely.
To speak of nowhere else, let us consider only Liangzhou.
Because of the indolence of the Daoist Emperor Zhu Rong, he had established a provincial governor system. The authority of each provincial governor had been greatly strengthened. Aside from lacking the power to command and recruit armies, the appointment of officials and the development of the people’s livelihood within each province were almost entirely left to the governor.
The Daoist Emperor merely set an annual tax quota for each governor, then collected it once in spring and once in autumn. He had no desire to concern himself with anything else, lest it interfere with his cultivation of immortality.
As a result, Liang’s control over the various regions had been severely weakened. And now, the governor of Liangzhou was Zhao Hong.
That very day, Zhao Hong had been inviting his advisers to sing and dine when he suddenly felt something stir within him. His chest tightened, and he toppled face-first onto the banquet table.
Only after a moment did Zhao Hong awaken amid the startled cries of those around him. The instant he opened his eyes, he shouted, “Quickly! Bring Guo Yan here!”
Guo Yan hurried over, realizing along the way that something was wrong. Liangzhou lay in a remote region and had always possessed weak fortune, yet today its destiny was surging with extraordinary force.
After hastily meeting Zhao Hong and receiving permission, Guo Yan immediately began to examine the fortune of Liangzhou.
Over Liangzhou, the fortune appeared like clumps of cotton. Above those pale masses, a black steed galloped and whinnied in every direction. Facing it from afar were the various Qiang and Hu tribes beyond Liangzhou.
Under ordinary circumstances, the horse of destiny possessed little force. Today, however, it neighed again and again, rearing into the air as though trampling swallows in flight.
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